Is Mariah Carey releasing a grunge album? Secret 1995 collection explained, songs - who are band Chick

Singer Mariah Carey has hinted that a secret grunge album she was working on almost 30 years ago may finally be released.

Carey, who is widely regarded as one of the best singer-songwriters of her generation by the music industry, first revealed the existence of the album back in 2020.

It now seems as if fans may soon be able to hear the album, as Carey has said she has found the original recordings which feature her lead vocals and hinted it could be released.

So, what do we know about the album?

Here’s everything you need to know.

What do we know about Mariah Carey’s grunge album?

In 1995, Mariah Carey was recording her smash hit pop album Daydream, and at the same time she and some fellow musicians were also secretly putting together an alternative rock project.

People did not know about this until 25 years later, when Carey spoke about it in her 2020 memoir, The Making of Mariah Carey.

A version of the album called Someone’s Ugly Daughter was quietly released under the band name Chick at the time, with Carey singing backup vocals.

But now, Carey has revealed she has found a version which features her singing lead vocals.

What has Mariah Carey said about the album?

In a new interview with the podcast Rolling Stone Music Now, Carey said that she has found recordings of the grunge album which feature her lead vocals - and she hinted that those recordings could be released.

She said: "I think this unearthed version will become, yes, something we should hear.”

She also excited fans by revealing that she is now building on the record with an unnamed musician.

She said: "I’m working on a version of something where there’ll be another artist working on this with me as well."

Carey also revealed that recording the album after she had spent long days in the studio working on Daydream got her through a difficult time.

She said: "I had no freedom during that time. That was my freedom, making that record.”

She also said she wanted to release the album at the time under a different moniker, but this wasn’t possible.

"I honestly wanted to put the record out back then under, you know, the same pseudonym, just put it out and be like, you know whatever, let them discover that it’s me. But that idea was kind of stomped and squashed."

The All I Want for Christmas singer said she even created the album art which features a cockroach and some scrawled lipstick.

She also said on the podcast that she remembers driving around in her car, shouting lyrics to songs.

Who are the band Chick?

Chick is an American alternative rock band consisting of Clarissa Dane as lead vocalist and Mariah Carey as backing vocalist.

Little is known about Dane, but she is said to be a friend of Careys.

Carey originally provided lead vocals on the Someone’s Ugly Daughter album until she was allegedly told by record label executives that the album could not be released due to worries it could damage her image and thriving career at the time.

As a compromise, Carey asked Dane to provide lead vocals while leaving her own background vocals on the tracks.

What songs are on the album?

Back in 2020, when she first spoke about the existence of the Someone’s Ugly Daughter album, Carey took to Twitter to say the project was “just for laughs, but added that it got through some “dark days”.

Carey also attached a video to her tweet, which showed the featured song called Demented.

The song Demented, along with another Chick song called Malibu, are still available to stream on YouTube.

Carey’s representatives confirmed to American online music publication Pitchfork that the singer wrote, produced and sang backing vocals for every song on the album, except for the cover of the Cheap Trick classic Surrender.